<h2>DESCRIPTION</h2>

<em>r.in.poly</em> allows the creation of GRASS binary
raster maps from ASCII files in the current directory
containing polygon, linear, and point features.

<p>
The <b>input</b> file is an ASCII text file containing the
polygon, linear, and point feature definitions.
The format of this file is described in the
<a href="#format.html"><i>INPUT FORMAT</i></a> section below.

<p>
The number of raster <b>rows</b> to hold in memory is per default 4096.
This parameter allows users with less memory (or more) on their
system to control how much memory <em>r.in.poly</em> uses.
Usually the default value is fine.


<h2>NOTES</h2>

<p>
The data will be imported using the current region settings to set the
new raster map's bounds and resolution. Any features falling outside
the current region will be cropped. The region settings are contolled
with the <em>g.region</em> module.

<p>
The format is a simplified version of the standard GRASS vector ASCII
format used by <em>v.in.ascii</em>.

<p>
Polygons are filled, i.e. they define an area.

<A NAME="format.html"></a>
<h3>Input Format</h3>

The input format for the <b>input</b> file consists of
sections describing either polygonal areas, linear features, or
point features. The basic format is:

<div class="code"><pre>
A                      &lt;for polygonal areas&gt;
    easting northing
    .
    .
    .
=   cat# label
L                      &lt;for linear features&gt;
    easting northing
    .
    .
    .
=   cat# label
P                      &lt;for single cell point features&gt;
    easting northing
=   cat# label
</pre></div>


The <tt>A</tt> signals the beginning of a filled polygon.
It must appear in the first column.

The <tt>L</tt> signals the beginning of a linear feature.
It also must appear in the first column.

The <tt>P</tt> signals the beginning of a single cell point feature.
Again, it must appear in the first column.

The coordinates of the vertices of the polygon, or the coordinates defining
the linear or point feature follow and must have a space in the first
column and at least one space between the <em>easting</em> and the
<em>northing.</em> To give meaning to the features, the
"<tt>=</tt>" indicates that the feature currently being
processed has category value <em>cat#</em> (which must be
an integer) and a <em>label</em> (which may be more than
one word, or which may be omitted).


<h2>EXAMPLE</h2>

An area described by four points:

<div class="code"><pre>
A
  591316.80   4926455.50
  591410.25   4926482.40
  591434.60   4926393.60
  591341.20   4926368.70
= 42 stadium
</pre></div>

<h2>SEE ALSO</h2>

<em>
<a href="r.colors.html">r.colors</a>,
<a href="d.rast.edit.html">d.rast.edit</a>,
<a href="g.region.html">g.region</a>,
<a href="r.in.xyz.html">r.in.xyz</a>,
<a href="r.patch.html">r.patch</a>,
<a href="v.in.ascii.html">v.in.ascii</a>,
<a href="wxGUI.vdigit.html">wxGUI vector digitizer</a>
</em>

<h2>AUTHOR</h2>

Michael Shapiro, U.S.Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory

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